Hm, that’s strange, if Callum is your brother it should alter the dialogue to remove references to his parents being alive at that point. Can you be more specific about where that’s happening for you?
When we hooked back up with Charlotte after the town was attacked, she mentioned looking for Callum at the estate. It hadn’t happened before on previous runs, so I wonder if it’s just a one off bug for me or what.
Looking at the code, that line should only trigger if Callum isn’t your brother, so I’m not sure why that’s happening for you. You’re certain you picked the brother option in this run?
And open question, is anyone else experiencing this bug?
I’ve gotten that before too. I guess I just assumed she was talking about her own estate, like she thought that Callum might have gone there looking for her.
I’ll be honest—this is absolutely baffling to me. The only mention of an estate in the scene in question is the following passage:
I...I looked for you
*if callum_relation = "brother"
in Ashbarrow. When I didn't find you...I
*else
at your estate. When I found it...burned down...I
thought I might find you here, instead.
Assuming this is indeed the line you guys are talking about, the code here is very simple and I can’t see any problem with it. The line about Callum’s estate should only trigger if he’s not your brother, and there’s no instance where the value of callum_relation changes other than in the prologue, where it gets correctly set to brother if you pick that option.
So…I’m stumped. I’ll check with my testers to see if there’s something I’m missing here, but otherwise I’m really not sure how this could happen or how to fix it.
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This is honestly coming along as one of the best stories on this platform. When I came across you’re demo years ago, I was scared it would never be published. I’m glad to see you’re still working on it, and I can’t wait to play the finished product. If I could suggest something, I would love to see the outcome of going back to your past and “righting your wrongs”. Another thing I wonder is if there is the potential for him/her to have had a partner in their past as “Rebel leader” or “Knight”. (Also, is this a past centered in Medieval Europe or completely made up?)
@dkurage @AnneWest Just to give an update on this situation, none of my testers could find problems with the code or replicate the error, so I wonder if this was just the result of some save/variable shenanigans or something. Right now it doesn’t seem like there’s anything to be done about this, but let me know if the problem recurs or persists, and under what circumstances.
While I don’t want to make promises, since the endgame will be pretty far off yet (and things can obviously change before that), it’s my current intention that this become a possible goal for the MC. We’ll see if it pans out!
If you mean a romantic partner, this is sort of difficult to answer. The MC can potentially have a pseudo-romance with Callum that will last for a few chapters but ultimately result in a breakup, as established by choices made in the prologue; however, I don’t count this as a “true” romance because it doesn’t last.
It’s possible that the secret RO is someone in the past, in which case that person might become a partner for the MC in this time period. Obviously, I can’t speak to that yet.
Barring those two possibilities, my inclination is “probably not”. I just don’t think courtship will fit into the timeline or feel meaningful unless it’s a relationship of some significance.
This question gets sort of obliquely answered in some optional lore in Chapter III, but the long and short of it is that the story does take place on Earth, and the past chapters technically take place in medieval Europe, but the whole thing is in an alternate Earth that diverged from our history in the 1st century. As a result, most of the continents share the same names as in our world (e.g. Kira is still considered to be of Asian descent), and there remain some cultural/societal similarities to our world, but most of the countries are different.
And, obviously, magic exists in this version of the world.
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Today is Labor Day
Today, we celebrate and honor the efforts of labor movements to bring us fairer and more just working environments—a cause that has definitely worked out really well in the US, which is now completely free from corruption, wage inequalities, and unfair labor practices across all sectors and industries.
But it was not always so! In olden days, before silly notions like “unions” existed, workers were forced to endure horrifying working conditions with no recourse, putting their own lives on the line to carve out meager existences in this cruel, cruel world.
It is this situation, of course, that the MC now finds themself in, stranded on a snowy peak without proper tools (equipment violation), fighting for their life all day and night (overtime violation), forced to work with at least one hostile, misogynistic, bullying coworker (workplace violation), constantly being shot at by enemy combatants (safety violation), and, of course, no dental benefits (health violation).
But of course, they cannot know better what they are missing, and thus cannot possibly fathom that this kind of life is unjust, and so they endure.
And now, with the new update, so can you!
Today’s update is about ~25,500 words long, which brings the total word count for the game up to ~446,500 words.
As a side note, since I round these numbers off to the nearest multiple of 500, I realize that at some point the total estimate is gonna be way off from the actual sum of each file’s word count. It will be interesting to find out by how much when it’s all over!
Anyway, this update brings us back to the past, where you’ll face off against the forces of Regalda/Salgeyd, and meet a few new characters, including, of course, the secret RO, who will be either Wesley or Weylon depending on which route you’re on! They’re a bit rough around the edges, but I’m sure you’ll all warm up to them in time.
…Also, although I teased her appearance in the last end-of-demo tag, fan favorite Charlotte actually isn’t in this one. That’s okay, though, because I’m sure you’ll all come to love Wesley/Weylon so much you’ll forget all about her!
But for those of you who really can’t wait, I anticipate the next update (which Charlotte will appear in) coming out sooner than you might expect—possibly even later this month (but no promises).
In the meantime, I hope you all like snow.
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My mc is of rather simpler desires than yours it seems, is it also possible to just let the past be the past and just get them to make the mc a hot male body in the present (and obviously a young adult one at that as my mc has no interest in starting over as a tiny baby), preferably one that can use magic? As not being able to do that was the mc’s downfall the first time around?
The MC will get make a new adult body for themself, though no knowledge yet on whether having magic will be a possibility.
Can you put a choice to skip to the latest chapters? My saves are unfortunately gone 
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I have considered this, but the problem is that this game, more than most, makes use of a lot of variables, big and small, to keep track of what’s been established so far. The current update, for instance, makes frequent use of a variable, cold_tol, that gets set in a seemingly throwaway choice all the way back in Chapter I. There’s actually a lot of stuff like this.
I really wish there was an easy way to get around this, because I know this is a very long game already at this point, but in order to set all the variables that would need to be set to avoid bugs in the future, I’m just not sure that a skip function would actually end up being significantly shorter than simply speeding through the game again. Upkeep would also be kind of a nightmare on my end, if I’m being honest.
I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, and I’m sorry about that, but the good news is that CoGDemos lets you save to its servers, and export your local saves to your offsite storage, which means that it should be a lot easier to preserve saves going forward.
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Peakkkkkk, I’m really looking forward to the next update, thank you for writing!
Honestly I’m really hoping Charlotte is the secret RO. Kinda feel like it’s likely that she will be the secret RO too what with the whole fact of us not remembering her life (and perhaps death/not-death) being brought up specifically.
Wait, I just read through a few replies, Charlotte is a fan favourite? Wasn’t expecting that honestly lol (despite me liking her myself), what with her kinda being a bitch for most of the currently existing content.
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As you can see, IF fandoms work in strange and mysterious ways. I’ve learned it’s best not to try to understand what drives people’s preferences, lest we gaze too deep into the watery abyss.
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finally caught up and i gotta say, charlotte and kira are the absolute MVPs for me so far in this story
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Today is September 29th, Charlotte's birthday
For some of you, this is a cause to celebrate.
For at least one person on my Tumblr (if you’re reading this, you know who you are), it is very much not.
Regardless, it is today, and shall remain so for some time, because time cares not for how we feel about each day that passes.
Time does not care about Charlotte’s feelings, either, as today’s update marks her return to the annals of this long-form tragedy; and so she now finds herself in the same predicament as the MC: stationed in a frozen wasteland in the middle of nowhere, resources waning, surrounded by people she hates—potentially including you! (But definitely including Wesley/Weylon. Look forward to that.)
But as with all birthdays, the only thing one can really do is wish for something better to come on another day, knowing that this wish will never come to pass, and then snuff out the few flames lit in commemoration of this bittersweet occasion.
..I’m not sure where the cake comes into this metaphor. Assume that there is no cake.
In fact, there may be no celebration at all, depending on your relationship with her. In this case, there are probably no candles either, no flames even to snuff out, for they were never lit in the first place.
There is only the wish.
…And on that note, Happy Birthday to Charlotte!
Today’s update is ~36,500 words, which brings the total up to ~483,000. If you’re wondering why it came so soon after the previous one (less than a month ago!), it’s because the first half of it (downtime in Valdenhart) was originally meant to be included along with the first part of the chapter, but it got too long.
The result, of course, is that this part got too long instead. But at least the pacing is a little better now!
As alluded to above, this update marks the return of Charlotte, though her screentime and presence will strongly depend on your prior relationship with her. So if you don’t like Charlotte, don’t worry, you won’t actually have to see too much of her!
A lot of this update involves spending time with various characters around Valdenhart Fortress, but it will also lead into the main mission your MC embarks on for this chapter, which will eventually lead them to the artifact that will someday take their life!
So, you know, both very relaxing plot beats.
…But that’s not all. I actually have something of an announcement!
I’m planning to launch a Patreon at the end of October, which will contain bonus content tentatively planned to include stuff like behind-the-scenes design ramblings, before-the-scenes previews, excerpts of journals, documents, and other writings by the ROs (and other main characters), and interactive side stories—the first of which will, appropriately for today’s occasion, have you play as a younger Charlotte, attempting to navigate the upper echelons of Allevar, and the expectations of her dearly beloved and not at all treacherous mother!
It’s also my intention to provide early access as a tier reward, which means the next part of the story itself will, fates willing, be available for Patreon subscriberes at the same time the Patreon launches, in about a month! Presumably, the public update will come a month after that, in late November, so if you’re eager to know what happens next after playing through today’s update, please consider signing up once it’s ready.
…As a side note, the staggered updates are probably going to make my “timing releases to holidays and observances” gimmick sort of difficult. I’m still not 100% sure how I’m going to handle that, but I guess I have at least a month to think about it!
Anyway, that was a lot of words, so if you’re tired of me saying things, I recommend you take a palate cleanser by reading the new update, where I instead pretend to be other people saying things!
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Quick balancing poll!
There is a check in the early parts of the current chapter that may or may not be too hard, so I’d like to get a read on how many people are experiencing the failure state.
If you’ve played at least through Fragment Afore (part 1 of this chapter), please let me know what result you got so I can see if it’s disproportionately skewed, or if it’s okay as it is.
Was Calver injured during the attack on the enemy camp?
- Yes, Calver was injured
- No, Calver avoided injury
0
voters
Post-results edit: Interestingly, these results are probably acceptable, leaning just a bit in favor of Calver being injured, but taking Tumblr and Discord polls into account, things seem to trend a bit oo far in favor of Calver being injured. With that in mind, I will probably push an update that makes it a bit easier, though still not a given success.
Thanks to those who submitted their results!
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Just finished the current demo and a few things I had to say:
First: Dear gods there’s already so much to this story, and you’ve got at least 5 more chapters planned?! The writing is stellar and I’m feeling absolutely spoiled over how good and immersive it all is! I can’t wait to read the complete story, and I’ll be eagerly following along in the meantime!
Second: How dare you include that cheeky note at the end! “Next time: Not Calver” How dare you!
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